


Alectrona

by sundownsymptoms



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Blood, Domestic Violence, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Third Person, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21989641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundownsymptoms/pseuds/sundownsymptoms
Summary: "Sundown" Shannon was born in a fire with nothing but a rifle, a pistol, and a knife to her name.
Relationships: Irvin Ellsworth/Shannon Ellsworth
Kudos: 2





	Alectrona

“changing who we are,  
to become our true selves,  
that’s what living life is about.”  
— b.c. // to those who dig

(…)

Folks ‘round these parts like to think they know the story that lies behind the woman called “Sundown” Shannon.

But they don’t know a damned thing.

And that’s the problem with the poor sods these days, isn’t it? Can’t seem to keep their noses out of other people’s business.

Because of it, they like pretending to know more than they let on. Like they had stood witness, but they didn’t. They weren’t there, they didn’t live through it -- experience it. Shannon did; it was her life. No one could be truer to telling the tale than her.

Shannon knows the truth -- her and the men that had dared to tread over her path; the ones that had tried to stop her. Sadly, most of them hadn’t lived to share the story. The truth is never told, not when you can lie and embellish. Lying’s too easy, makes folks feel as if they had played a part in the events that had conspired when they didn’t. Not that it makes it right, but Shannon admits, the stories that people spun were much more entertaining to hear about, and they must be fun to share, too, because they spread through the west faster than a wildfire in a dry patch of tobacco.

She gets a good kick out of the pictures that rumors paint of her, framing her as a rabid girl with ratty red hair, bloodshot eyes, and a cold piece of iron in her hand, still smoking with sparks from her most recent shot; the image strikes fear in the hearts of women and men alike. Yet, that isn’t who she is, or was. Sure, folks are in their rights to read what is in the news prints, to formulate their own thoughts and opinions on her, what to think, what to expect. Yet, that didn’t mean they could spout their bullshit like it’s all fact and not a fabrication. She may be brutal, wearing blood like warpaint, but she sure ain’t feral.

The truth may be harder to swallow, but it’s time for her to speak up for herself; the truth is that she’s been a victim her whole life. She’s been left with scars all over her body, marking her up from both inside and out; gifts to her from an abuser, her husband, Irvin Ellsworth. He’s the one who folks should fear. Stories should be spread of him, wanted posters should bear his name. But that’s not how it worked out. Irvin’s power is capital, and it never fails him. To this day, he’s the hero in the public’s eye, and she’s the villain. If life weren’t a living hell, she’d be a free woman with her beliefs and faith grounded firmly in the law, but that’s all a fiction in itself. Should she be so liberal, she’d credit Irvin Ellsworth for Sundown’s creation; he made her and then damned her to an empty life, being chased from one end of the country to the other by bounty hunters and lawmen alike. He’d taken everything from her, and for that, she’ll never forgive him, not even if he begged for it. Like she’d always said, life’s hell but it ain’t unfair. As it is, Irvin is not the one who’s being tracked down like the dog he is, but that means the honor is left to none other than her, and she’ll gladly take that burden on her shoulders if it means feeling the gratifying satisfaction of putting a bullet in his skull.

Don’t believe it? Not yet, you don’t. Should you want to believe in her, you’ll need to see it -- experience it from her point of view.

Maybe then folk will be able to determine a truth from a lie.

Doesn’t mean they condone her brutality, but perhaps they will understand it; they will know what is it that the trail of blood she sheds means. It’s red in her ledger left behind from moving further and further down, lost on the path to acquiring her revenge.

\--

The full truth to start? Irvin Ellsworth is a bastard. But unfortunately, he’s the bastard that she’d been roped into marrying for a whole year and a half of her life (the two are still married in the government’s eyes, but she doesn’t like to admit it.) A whole year and a half wasted on that filthy, rotten man. What a mistake it was, and that hadn’t taken her too long to figure out.

But in the beginning, Shannon hadn’t known Irvin. That’s not her fault. Wish it as she may, she couldn’t have possibly foreseen their future. She wouldn’t have been able to see how evil he is, straight down to the very core of his being — not for months. Not that it would have mattered if she did. Her parents needed to see her married off sooner or later, if not with him, then to some other strange man that she would have to learn to love. Call her foolish, but back then she’d been a hopeless romantic. If you ask her about that sappy, sirupy nonsense now, she might just sock you in the jaw. Thinking of it these days, marrying for love, it’s nothing but a childish dream in her opinion. Those who did were the lucky ones. And Shannon wasn’t lucky. She’d come from a poor family. Her ma and pa did the odd jobs here and there to make ends meet, but it wasn’t enough. The bank had threatened to take away their property at one point if their dues weren’t paid by the end of the month. Now, there was no way her family could come up with a thousand dollars in that kind of time, unless…

Shannon in her young age, she’d been a vision of beauty (she’s less so in more recent years, scarred from head to toe due to being hit by bullets and cut with knives.) Her fiery hair and daintily-freckled face attracted notice, numbers of suitors had come to her and sought her hand with hopes to slide a gold ring on her finger. Some men were poorer than her, and some had more money than the Devil himself; Irvin Ellsworth had been one of those men. He’d caught her eye, a bit warily, but in the end, he was the one she would marry after her parents graced him with their blessing. After all, Shannon’s marriage to this fine, rich fella would save their house. It was a shame, Shannon and her father had been a close-knit pair, teaching her how to shoot guns, hunt, and play cards, raising her no different than he had raised her brothers (God rest their souls.) Even so, her pa was all too eager to hand her off to a complete stranger if it meant they could keep their life-long home. She remembers his last words to her, imprinted into her memory: “It’s a wild world out there. We do what we must to survive it. You understand, don’t you, sunshine?” She didn’t, but she nodded anyway. Holding back the tears that had threatened to spill from her eyes, Shannon watched through a watery blur as he left her behind without so much as a second glance back -- no hugs, no kisses, just his words and the familiar sentiment of his nickname for her. Never heard from him or her ma again. Not even a letter.

She doesn’t miss him. Neither of them. How could she? They abandoned her.

Due to the time restraints, Irvin and Shannon had to hurry the plans for their wedding along and ended up marrying by the end of the month, paying back the bank the money her family had owed up front and in full. After that, it was just her and Irvin, living on a nice, big farm in a manor together. It was fine for a month or so, but only just. Irvin back then often left home to attend business meetings in the city. She learned that Irvin invested in production businesses from industries like oil, lumber, and mining alike, earning buckets full of money, more than enough to last one man a lifetime. The Ellsworth name meant a lot to certain people, Irvin coming from an influential family. Because of it, he had invited over all sorts of guests and business partners, and in return they would reach out to him. But strangely, a few of the men that came by every now and then looked... mean; a rough and tough bunch of boys, clothes all grimy and torn. They didn’t play the part of clean-cut, businessmen, the term “mercenaries” might suit them more. She never knew what it is that they spoke about, she wasn’t involved in any of it. Her role, simply put, was to be Irvin’s wife; cook dinner, pour drinks, then she’d leave the room and shut the door behind her so they could talk amongst themselves freely. Hell, he wore her on his arm like a gold trophy at parties. Her curiosity grew more and more, piqued by the security of Irvin’s office. He warned her more than once to keep out of his workroom, but he never went as far as to keep it locked. She used to think that it was a slip-up on his part. Now she knows better. He had been testing her, waiting for her to do something stupid.

She had failed to disappoint him.

Waiting until he had left town on a business trip, Shannon crept into his office and flicked through his belongings, searching for something — anything. What she found horrified her. And there was plenty of evidence to incriminate him. From handwritten letters consisting of murder details to payments and contracts with outlaw gangs. Innocent people slaughtered, properties and land stolen, stained by the blood spilt on her husband’s orders. Later on she’d learn that the word on the street is that Irvin is well-known in the criminal underworld, killing everyone that dared to get in his way. It’s how he became such a successful businessman, untouchable even, ruining the lives of good, hard-working folk for his own sick greed; but he never did it by his own hand, of course, he used the hired help of mercenaries. She remembered the sinking feeling of dread in her stomach, how she’d hoped she might be wrong in her premonitions of Irvin. But she was right, and it was too late. What a turn of events, how everything had unfolded, and she couldn’t have stopped it. Being married to a man as powerful as Irvin, how is a woman supposed to leave him? His grasp is infinite, forever outreaching.

First came the terror; fear at her very core of her being, afraid of the man she’d wedded to. Then came the anger. Her hands had started to shake at the thought of how many lives he’s taken (including her own), and she had to resist the urge to tear all the papers apart out of sheer fury. She had pocketed a few of the documents in a huff should Irvin deny her claims, having planned in that very moment to confront him for his crimes. The last thing she wanted was to stay married to a murderer. Shannon had only been nineteen years old at the time of discovering her husband’s plots -- in her mind, a bright future could still be lying ahead of her -- and she didn’t want it stolen away by becoming a man’s accessory.

In hindsight, perhaps a confrontation hadn’t been the best route to take. She should’ve just ran while she had the chance and didn’t look back. Yet, she stayed. Waited for his return. What a naive girl she had been, thinking that she could stop him by simply threatening to expose his efforts to the public with a few mere papers. Even dumber to think he wouldn’t hurt her for standing up to him. Shannon was no hero. Still isn’t. But she had tried to be that day. You can guess where her actions led her. Irvin came home, weary from a long trip, seeking comfort in his wife only for her to yell at him and shove proof of his guilt in his red-hot face. Her behavior earned her a swift punch to the jaw. Not a backhanded slap. A solid hit. It was just the first of many more that night, escalating. He had thrown her to the floor next. Kicked her in the ribs. She tried to fight back, a thrashing tangle of limbs as he dragged her by her hair upstairs and locked her in a closet. He didn’t let her out until the sun had rose up the next morning even while she had screamed and cried until her throat went raw. Her voice had become hoarse, her fists left bloody and bruised from hitting the door, having demanded all night long to be freed but to no avail. Her body ached for weeks, her face marred, and her heart broken.

Irvin hadn’t left her alone in the manor after that. For a year, routine guards patrolled the perimeter of the house and property day in and day out, even when her husband was at home. Hell, she wasn’t allowed to leave the premises without him at her side. Even then, she didn’t get to leave for anything that she wanted to do, forced to attend many varied events in Irvin’s honor. Odds be damned, Shannon tried time and time again to run away only to earn more and more of Irvin’s cruelty. The farmland expanded too wide a length for her to go unseen for too long, so she had always ended up being caught by her husband’s pathetic lackeys. She had not a single shred of hope left in her soul, almost might’ve gone and killed herself with her state of mind. Not until she remembered the rifle left in the cabinet of her husband’s secured office.

Her whole plan of escape was formed around getting her hands on that rifle; it would be her only means of defense against attackers on her way out. Getting it was the tricky part. Ever since she had wandered into Irvin’s office that unfortunate day, he had started locking the door. She had to discover where he kept the key to his workroom and due to the lack of potted plants and carpets in the hallway (common hiding spots), she guessed he either carried it on his person or he hid it up on the doorframe above the entrance. It was the latter of the two options she had learned when Irvin’s eyes weren’t upon her. Access to the rifle solved, but a long-range weapon wouldn’t protect her up close and personal. She’d need a melee item of sorts if push came to shove, and she was worried that it would. Airing too far on the side of caution wasn’t something she feared -- you can never be too careful -- not when it comes to her husband. A kitchen knife wasn’t much in terms of a weapon, but it would do. Her last concern was to make it out unseen, seeing as she’d always gotten caught whether she fought back or not. It’s the thought that she would need a distraction that solidifies the idea in her mind; she will escape. And she won’t come back. The diversion had to be on a grander scale because, should she be seen by the guards, they wouldn’t be focused on making her a priority.

She settled on starting a fire. The thought of Irvin’s livelihood consumed by the ferocity of an inferno, burning everything beyond repair where no phoenix could rise out of the ashes, it brought a smile to her face. Her first smile in what had felt like forever. She wasn’t quite educated on how to make such a concoction herself, but she had heard stories of outlaws setting towns on fire by throwing fire bottles at buildings as they ran through, causing a storm of chaos. How difficult could it be to craft one? If her husband’s hired crooks could do it, she could too, having heard them talking in hushed whispers at dinner parties on what they needed to make them. Without her hair bursting into flames for trying. The damage it could do; it had to be a risk she was willing to take, and as a woman with nothing left to lose, she decided it was. She would only need a couple items, like a breakable glass bottle, preferably something with alcohol in it, and a piece of flammable cloth to serve as a fast-acting wick. If she wanted the fire to spread with a vengeance like her own, she had to make more than just one. In the meantime, she had started to play the role of Irvin’s wife quite well, and it took all of her greatest efforts: faking smiles and serving his needs, wicked whims and all. He didn’t suspect her disloyalty, thinking he had beaten her into submission when she was still boiling beneath the surface with a hatred fit to bubble over.

Then came the fateful night after months of waiting and planning. She had not a dime of her own. She wouldn’t be able to rely on her husband’s abundance of filthy lucre, having packed a sack of clothes along with family heirlooms and jewelry that she could sell for money until she found some work, having hope back then to settle into a new, honest life somewhere far away from Irvin. Things wouldn’t quite work out that way. She hid her belongings beneath the back porch.

By this time, Shannon had lulled Irvin into a false sense of security by letting her anger sit dormant, pretending to be stupidly in love with him. The number of guards he kept around the property by then were slimmer than before, but the ones left still patrolled with a strange sort of righteousness in their steps like it was their divine right to protect the pathetic headman of the manor. It was the perfect time to strike. On top of being a heavy sleeper, Shannon had given Irvin a tad more alcohol than he usually drank at dinner and found that he didn’t stir a wink when she snuck out of bed. Game on. She crept out into the hallway, tiptoeing the length of it down to Irvin’s office and rose onto the balls of her feet to reach for the key on the doorframe. Once unlocked, she headed straight for the rifle cabinet and took out the gun, feeling its solid weight in her hands. He could be quite the fool, couldn’t he? Locked the workroom but didn’t get a bolt to seal away his weapons. Or was that his design? Here she hoped that the lessons her father had instilled in her to shoot straight still rang true. In nothing but a nightdress, Shannon headed downstairs with the rifle in tow, avoided the creaky steps, and darted into the kitchen, her heart beating wildly in her chest at a skittish rabbit’s pace. She threw the rifle over her torso, kept intact by the leather sling. Grabbing a knife from the block on the counter, she shoved the blade into one of the pairs of boots she left by the backdoor before she carefully slipped them on. Armed to the teeth and prepared for war, all that remained for her to do was to unleash the hounds of Hades and run.

Shannon tore off a shred of her nightgown and snatched a box of matches from one of the kitchen drawers before she risked getting her hands on any of the breakable alcohol bottles; she didn’t dare to make a sound too loud or this whole plan of hers would’ve come undone at the seams. Using the material of her dress, she shoved a thin piece of cloth into the neck of one of three whiskey bottles, another, and then into a third, hurriedly (but carefully) having set one after the other onto the back porch before she inched out the door with the last molotov in tow. The night air hit her, a brisk wind that stole the breath from her lungs and left nothing but a cluster of nerves behind. She had endured what was more than enough pain and torment for one individual, from the purple-blue bruising imprints on her skin to scars so deep that it left an aching in her bones, seeping down into her soul. Her suffering had come to this moment, the one she had waited so long for, and God damn her for holding back. Hesitance would only get her in trouble, a lesson she still takes to heart.

The back door closed without so much as a squeak on its hinges. Seems fate was on her side that night. Luck, too. One guard had stood vigilant at the bottom of the steps leading up to the back porch. Shannon took a deep breath, inhaling through her nose before she inched up behind him, her footfalls soft and unheard as she reached for the man’s shoulder and plunged the knife into the crook of his neck. She tried not to think about the grotesque image of scarlet blood that spurted from his neck, or the noises from him as he choked on it. Or that he had lived his entire life -- hours, years full of memories and experiences -- only for her to strip it all away in a second or less. Eventually, the thought won’t even cross her mind. She taught herself over time not to let it. Shannon didn’t have the time to mourn over her actions. It was only the first kill of many, driven to murder over and over again in order to survive her husband’s wrath.

When she had set fire to a small patch of dry crops, it didn’t take long for the flames to consume the entirety of Irvin’s property, spreading Shannon’s hunger for vengeance far and wide. Home finally looked like how it had always felt: hell. The inferno was destroying his entire livelihood before her very eyes, and she wanted more than anything to sit back and laugh. The bastard deserved it and every other bad thing that would follow. But she couldn’t. Her quick feet carried her to the barn, running as fast as she could as chaos unleashed itself around her. Yells of men, both angry and scared, met her ears, ringing out through the fields and left her heart pumping wildly in her chest for fear of being caught.

She waited until the danger passed, grabbing the sack she packed from under the foyer before she made a break for the stables. She slid in through the slight crack in the door and quickly shouldered it shut behind her, hoping she hadn’t been seen. Inside, the horses whinnied and shook wildly in their fenced-in enclosures, begging to be freed from their confinement before the fire closed in on them. Shannon took a deep breath, willing that she calmed down. ‘Almost there,’ she told herself.

“Mrs. Ellsworth? What are you doing out here?” A voice chimes out from somewhere in the space over her shoulder.

She flinched, mentally scolding herself. Should’ve known there would be a guard posted in the barn. She heard the draw of his gun and the flick of a hammer as he aimed at the back of her head, ready to fire.

He wouldn’t shoot to kill, not without Irvin’s direct order.

“Whose blood is that?”

She slowly turned on her heel, hands up in surrender.

She wouldn’t give up again. She wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry.” Don’t even know if she meant it.

_It’s a wild world out there. We do what we must to survive it. It’s a wild world out there. We do what we must to survive it. It’s a wild world out there. We do what we must to —_

Dropping her bag, Shannon rushed forward and grabbed the stranger’s wrist angling the pistol into the air as the shot went off, and she wrangled it out of his fingers, letting it clatter uselessly to the straw-covered dirt. She shoved the man away and sent him a few feet backwards, giving her the time she needed to draw her rifle from her back and pull the trigger.

**BANG!**

Sparks flew. Another dead body splayed out before her, a bullet put through the middle of its forehead and a flesh flower left behind, blood and brains in full bloom. The sight brought her to the brink of tears, the kind of crying that stung her eyes and at her heart. How could she ever be a better person than Irvin? She often wondered if they were the same, taking all these lives like they meant nothing. She swore an oath that day, vowing that she would never kill again. If only Irvin hadn’t survived. If only he hadn’t kept coming after her for days on end. Maybe then she could’ve kept her promise to herself.

Shannon becomes a killer in the end, that much is known. But the difference between her and her husband is that Irvin kills for greed. Shannon kills for survival.

Blinking back the waterworks, Shannon scavenged the guard’s pistol from the barn floor before moving on to strap a saddle onto one of the finer horses. Her hands shook violently, struggling to fasten her belongings onto her new steed and put her foot in the stirrup as she hadn’t ridden a horse in years since her days on her family’s farm. The spotted Appaloosa would become her noble steed. Elio, she called him. Her ride or die. Her companion. Her personal patch of sunshine that shone on even in the darkest days. The pair of them barged out the barn doors and took off at such a high speed that her mount kicked up a dust cloud in the flames that slowly encroached behind them. They would be on the run together for a long time coming. She could still see to this day, in flashes behind her eyelids, the panicked yelling and silhouettes of men running amuck while an inferno hungrily consumed the ranch around them as her and Elio ran for the hills. Her freedom awaited her over the horizon.

It was the first time she felt the wind in her hair, riding out of the ranch and past the main gates, her heart soaring out of her chest with a glowing euphoria. She wanted to cry and laugh all at the same time. No more Irvin. Her sights could finally be set on her aspirations, hopes and dreams long buried were now lying just out of her reach. The possibilities were endless at that moment. She thought a new life was awaiting just out of her grasp -- one that she couldn’t wait to finally begin after years of her youth had been wasted.

It should have been no surprise when a lasso suddenly tightened around her neck. Her hands slipped from the reins, torn out of the saddle from the force of being tugged backwards. Shannon’s neck burned under the coarse scrape of the rope, clinging to the ever-tightening noose -- to that crucial inch of space she pried free with nimble fingers. She acted fast, ignoring the black spots in her vision as she reached a hand down for the knife in her boot, fumbling blindly for it until she grabbed the hilt and pulled it free. In the time it took to cut herself free, she had been dragged to the feet of her captor, rolling over onto her back and standing up on shaky legs, bloodstained knife drawn and blue eyes wild.

Shannon held back a fit of coughs, choking on the dry air filling her lungs when she realized that she was face to face with Irvin. The need to breathe had been forgotten in a haste. Seeing him made her whole body quiver with untapped rage, brows furrowed and teeth clenched down so hard that her jaw bone ached. She took one quick step forward, blade at the ready, and Irvin drew a revolver on her so fast that it made her head spin. The muzzle of it kissed the skin on her forehead, making her cease and tense up all at once. Staring down the barrel of yet another gun, she backed down but not without being unhappy, her lip curled in disdain at the fact that Irvin of all men had her pinned to the spot.

“You filthy, rotten bitch,” Irvin hisses, words tainted with venom. His hair, usually neatly kept, was a ruffled mess, and the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes were prominent even in the dark. The avid flames that had engulfed the Ellsworth ranch miles behind him made it look like a beacon in the night, framing his silhouette. “After all I’ve done for you! This is how you repay me?”

Shannon had refused to let him see her defeated, didn’t want to let him win, and held her chin high. “I don’t owe you a damn thing, you piece of shit,” she fired back.

Irvin didn’t hesitate to show her his true colors, Shannon being pistol-whipped across her cheek. She recoiled in pain, face bruised and skin marred by the action. “Look what you made me do!” Irvin accused, keeping his gun aimed at her as she slowly straightened up. “This is your fault! Don’t you forget it! You brought this on yourself!”

“No,” she declared and wiped at the blood that leaked from her nose with the back of her hand, smearing it. “It’s not.”

Shannon had been a woman left with nothing to lose. Irvin had stripped her of everything that made her who she was, forcing her to play a part she never wanted. Doomed to the destiny of being a prized trophy wife thanks to her parents, paying the price for their sins. She didn’t owe them a thing, not a goddamn thing. But she did, saving her family and their childhood home. And in return, she was beaten, raped, Irvin knowing her more intimately than she would care to admit. He had stolen her life away, and replaced it with the life he wanted for her. With all that bared in the forefront of her mind, she asked herself: what does it matter if I die here? It didn’t. Nobody knew who she was beyond Irvin Ellsworth’s wife. Hell, Shannon didn’t even know who she was beyond that anymore. No one would be missing her. She would win her freedom that night, whether she earned it by running or in death. And so she ran at Irvin, eyes ablaze and blade angled for his stomach, seeking a slow, painful death for the man that had slowly killed her on the inside.

A couple shots went off from Irvin’s gun. He fired around her in a panic, making an arc around her. Only one bullet had found its way to her. It lodged itself into the meat of Shannon’s shoulder, but she didn’t let it deter her, adrenaline at an all-time high and filtering out the pain. Like a cougar, she all but pounced on him, claws at the ready. She tackled him to the dirt and without blinking, she stabbed him once just below the sternum. He stopped struggling at the shock from it. With tears in her eyes, happy ones, she did it again. Then three times. The warmth of his lifeblood had come gushing out. It covered her hands and stuck under her fingernails, staining her skin, something to remember him by. Irvin’s blank stare went from Shannon then down to the knife and back again. She kept her eyes locked on his face the entire time, watching the color drain into a ghostly white.

“You… You stabbed me,” he croaks, and the bastard had given up the fight the moment her knife had penetrated his innards. He had chased her himself only to receive a death sentence, or what should’ve been one. She had hoped that if he didn’t die from bleeding to death, then he would’ve died from the sheer shame of being outsmarted by his own wife. Sadly, neither of those fates would come to fruition.

“Yeah,” she said, breathless, and brushed away the stray strands of hair that had fallen across her forehead.

“You’ll regret that,” he claimed, and she just smiled lightly. She knew she wouldn’t. And she never did. The only thing she regretted is that she didn’t cut out his throat instead.

With that, she pulled the knife out from Irvin’s middle and flung the gore off the blade before she sheathed in back into her boot.

She turned on her heel and began the short trek back to her horse as she started to feel the aches and pain kick in from the lack of adrenaline in her system. “Shannon?” She heard him call out, voice hoarse as he sat up to watch her leave. “Shannon, where are you going? You can’t leave me here! I’ll die.”

No words left her lips, she simply struggled back onto Elio’s saddle and grabbed the reins with a grip so tight that her knuckles went pale.

“You can’t leave! You’re mine! You belong to me!”

“I ain’t yours. And you sure as shit ain’t mine,” Shannon retorted. She spat a mix of saliva and blood in Irvin’s direction before she gave her horse a quick whip and broke off into a trot, abandoning him and all she’d ever known.

“Shannon Ellsworth! Get back here! SHANNON!”

His yells were ignored until they faded into the quiet sounds of the fire ridden night, no longer able to be heard over the rush of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears or the pounding of Elio’s hooves on the trail.

Her pa was right, she thought.

It’s a wild world out there. We do what we must to survive it. And that’s the truth.


End file.
